Sleeping with Ghosts
by comicbooklovergreen
Summary: One-shot. A different end to the film. I've already written a story about Abby's survival being the thing that brings Matt and Elektra together. This is the darker version. Character death. Rating for sexual situations.


**Author's Note: **If you haven't guessed from the rating or the summary, this is not my usual Elektra fic. In fact, it falls under at least three categories of stories that I never thought I'd write. It's AU and angsty beyond my normal standards, and there's sexual activity. Enough sexual activity to warrant the rating, so if you're not into reading that, then don't. Otherwise, check it out and, give me some feedback. Just remember that I don't have a beta, and realize that this is seriously experimental, and seriously not what I'm used to doing.

The title for this comes from the Placebo song of the same name.

* * *

><p>He's kissing his secretary when it happens. He's with Karen, on the steps of his brownstone, and they're making out like teenagers. Karen pulls away, just enough to breathe some of that polluted New York air. Gasping a little, she rests her forehead against his, slipping her fingers into his jacket.<p>

"Can I come up?" she asks, putting her mouth very close to his ear.

Matt stills the hands running up and down his sides, kissing her soundly on the mouth. When that's done, he tells her, as nicely as he can, that his apartment isn't fit for human eyes. At least not the kind that work. "I can't even imagine what it looks like up there."

Karen laughs. They've been going out for three months, but she's worked for him much longer than that. This combined with their fairly recent closeness has given her an unusual level of insight into his behavior. She knows he only makes the blind jokes when he's angry, amused, or aroused. Their proximity makes it easy for her to guess which one's at work tonight. She leans closer, tells him that his place can't be any worse than her dorm used to be.

Matt kisses her again, mostly to buy time. For about the thousandth time, he feels terrible about this. She's younger than he is, that college dorm isn't too far into the past. And she's his secretary, the one that Foggy's had a crush on since they hired her. Foggy's remarkably calm about it though, says that Matt's not married and she's not married, so who cares? As long as Foggy doesn't walk in on them half-naked, sprawled across one of the desks, he doesn't have a problem.

Matt though, Matt has a problem. She's young and sweet, and she works for him, and he's using her. Using her like he did Heather and Glori and others that he can't even recall. At first, he used the women and the sex to forget about his miserable existence. Now he uses them to forget Elektra. One thing that hasn't changed, they don't get to see his apartment. He doesn't and no one else either, and Matt's thinking of a way to explain this when the smell hits him.

It's none of the usual scents, smog and garbage and food, mixed with a million other things. It's her. It's her, and for a second, Matt wonders how ghosts can smell like anything.

"Matt?"

Karen's worried. She's a little tipsy from dinner, and there are other things clouding her thought processes, but she's lucid enough to realize that Matt's forgotten her. She turns in his arms, trying to see what he's seeing, before remembering that he's not seeing anything.

Matt makes an excuse. He tells her that he's sick; something must've went down wrong at dinner. Or maybe he doesn't tell her anything; maybe he just bolts into the building and slams the door in her face. Either way, he doesn't care.

He runs faster than he ever has before, takes the stairs three at a time. Shock and panic take away the usual grace, and he nearly breaks his ankle. Twice. None of it registers; none of it matters at all. All that matters is getting to the roof.

He hears her breathing, her heartbeat, long before he bangs his shoulder against the metal door. He kept expecting her to run, all the way up, he expected her to sense his clumsy approach and bolt like a terrified rabbit. She didn't do that. She doesn't even move when he meets her on the roof. Matt stands there, frozen to the spot with his jaw wide open, and Elektra doesn't even bother to turn away from the view he brought her here to see once. She does speak though. Her voice is emptiness beyond description, and it chills him to the bone. "Matt."

* * *

><p>They're in the apartment now. She's sitting at his kitchen table and he's across from her, clenching his hands together. She won't let him touch her, won't let him get close at all. He thinks about that first meeting, how she responded when he grabbed her. If he did that now, she wouldn't take off, wouldn't twist his arm out of its socket. She'd do worse. Not because she particularly wants to, but because instinct is now all she's running on.<p>

She's sipping a glass of wine, from the bottle Karen and Foggy gave as a birthday gift. Matt doesn't know why her sipping wine should seem more wrong than her being alive, but it _does _seem that way.

"Who was the woman?" she asks. Not as bad as the roof, but still frightening, still so unbelievably detached.

"She's…that was Karen. My secretary."

Her mouth actually quirks. He hears the smile instead of seeing it. When her voice comes back, some of the emptiness has gone away. "Wow."

She's sipping again and Matt drinks from his own glass. He doesn't want to, he just needs to keep his hands busy. Keep from vaulting the table and yanking her from that chair and pulling her into his arms. Or vaulting the table and yanking her up and shaking her until she told him what the hell was going on. As it is, the apartment's dark. She wouldn't let him touch the few lights that are there.. There are candles on the table, another gift from Karen. Candles and wine and his dead lover. Matt wonders if he's gone insane, wonders if he cares one way or the other.

"She's nothing," he says, not sure why he should be the one explaining. He means it about Karen, and that scares him a little. There've been moments when he almost felt like Karen _could _mean something, somewhere down the road. But Elektra's here now and she's overpowering him so much, and he can barely remember Karen's last name,

Elektra laughs. It's not the warmth he remembers from before her father's death. She's empty again, ice that won't be affected by the candlelight dancing across her face. "I didn't come here for you."

Matt frowns. Her right hand is on the table and he almost reaches for it. Her heart jumps and he clenches his fist again. "You're here. You were on my roof." He's trying to be gentle or teasing or something along those lines. It's not working, but he's trying.

Elektra puts her hand around the stem of the wineglass. She's put it down again, but she doesn't pick it up. Just grips it so tight that Matt fears what will happen if she doesn't ease up.

"Elektra," he murmurs. Carefully, very carefully, he takes the glass and she lets him. He sets it aside and wishes so badly that he could look into her eyes. "Elektra please. Please honey, you need to tell me-"

"Honey?" Elektra parrots. No telling whether she's amused, exasperated, or angry. "Is that what you call her?"

Matt slams his fist against the table. He does this so forcefully that both of their wineglasses fall over. They roll to the table's edge and crash to the floor. Glass goes everywhere. The wine's red, and it looks a little like blood running over the tile.

"Dammit, Elektra! Karen is…Karen is nothing, do you understand that? Are you really going to come back here without telling me-"

"I didn't come back here for you," she repeats. She stares at the table for a moment, hiding from him even though he can't see. "I didn't mean to come here." The coldness is gone. She's so quiet and broken that an ordinary man wouldn't have heard that last denial.

But Matt does hear it. He hears it perfectly, and it scares him immensely. "Why then?" he asks, as gently as he possibly can. There's a change in her now, and this time he doesn't stop himself from taking her hand.

Elektra doesn't answer right away. She contemplates the table and Matt uses the time to suck in a relieved breath. He could hear her and smell her and sense her presence in ways no one else could, but until that moment, he still wasn't sure. Wasn't sure that _she _wasn't a phantom, an apparition. He supposes that she still _could _be one, maybe he just doesn't know. He doesn't care. He can feel her, and if that means that he's really strapped to a bed in a mental hospital right now, then so be it.

Finally, she answers the question, her fingers staying limp within his. "I came for a funeral. I never meant for this," she nods vaguely at their surroundings.

She's not lying. She really hadn't set out to see him. Matt ignores the implications of this, focusing on the thousand-and-one things he can hear in her voice. "Who's funeral?"

Her fingers tighten. She's hurting his hand without realizing. She ducks her head and lets out something mildly akin to a dry sob. "There…there was a girl. A kid that I knew."

Her voice cracks and she makes that sound again, and Matt's stomach twists up. He's never heard her sound like that before. Might not be saying much, since he'd known her so briefly, but still. "A kid," he repeats slowly, trying to figure it out. "Was she…was she yours?"

He expects her to deny it. He can't picture her with a daughter, can't fathom it. Elektra doesn't deny. Instead, she starts playing with his fingers, working them between her own. "In a way," she replies, pausing to think, "In a way, she was mine."

He can't process this, any of it. He asks something ridiculous, because he doesn't know what the hell has happened to his life in the past hour. "Was…she wasn't mine?"

Elektra chuckles again. It's dry and humorless, but she squeezes his hand sympathetically. He's not stupid and she knows this. It's her fault. All of it is her fault. "She wasn't ours. I can't…I can't do that. Have children." She drifts off, staring at Matt's refrigerator. There's a single magnet hanging up there, but she can't see it well in the darkness. "Mark's family used to live in New York. I didn't know. Mark buried her here and I came to watch."

"Mark." He felt full-on sick now. Elektra wasn't making sense and he didn't know anything and all he wanted to do was hold her because whatever it was that he didn't know was clearly ripping Elektra to shreds.

"He's nothing," Elektra replies, thinking she hears a bit of jealous mixed with everything else. She looks back at him and squeezes his hand again. Then she surprises them both by bringing that hand to her lips. "He's nothing to me," she corrects. "Not like that. Not like you and Karen."

She's teasing him and Matt knows this. He knows and he still yanks his hand away, blind eyes flashing. "Jesus, Elektra! I don't want to talk about Karen! I want-"

She's there before he can finish saying what he wants. She leaves the chair and her shoes crunch on the glass and spread the wine all over. She goes to him and stands over him and covers his mouth with hers. He gasps in surprise and Elektra plunges her tongue inside.

Matt is on overload. Her scent, her closeness, they'd been making him crazy already. Now she's everywhere, running her hands over his body in a way that's similar to what Karen did earlier. Except that it's not. Not similar at all..

Elektra kneels on the tile, bits of glass clinging to her jean-covered thighs. She kisses him harder, breaking only when she judges him to be in immediate need of air. "You don't want to talk about Karen," she whispers, nibbling at his lobe. "I don't want to talk about Mark. Or Abby."

Abby. So that's the name. He's ashamed because he should care more about this and less about what Elektra's tongue is doing. She's got one hand planted in his hair and the grip's almost painful, same as when she held his hand. "God," Matt hisses through clenched teeth.

Elektra smiles against his cheek. She's planting butterfly kisses all over his face. She gets to his lips again, sucking the lower one between her teeth and nibbling. "I don't want to talk," she repeats." The hand that's not in his hair drifts under the table, down to his lap. "And I don't think you want to either."

Matt wants to argue, wants to say how worried he is, how scared he is for her. He wants to say a lot of things, but her hand is rubbing against him, over and over. Still, he manages to get his lips away, resting a hand on the back of her neck. The other is on her waist, and he realizes how thin she is. "Elektra…" It comes out harsh and strangled and Matt curses his lack of control.

"Shhh," her hand goes from his hair to his lips. The other one's still touching him under the table. "Tell you later. I promise." Elektra sees past the arousal, sees the protest coming. She kisses him several times on the lips. "I said I'd find you and I did. Trust me now."

It's a manipulation and Matt knows it. She's going from hard to soft, but she's still touching him under the table. She's found him, but she's already admitted that she didn't plan to. He groans, trying to explain all this.

Elektra stops. She stops stroking him, lets go, but lets her hand hover nearby. The other hand touches his cheek. No stubble tonight, he'd shaved before the date with Karen. Elektra looks him dead in the eye, knowing he can't do the same. "Do you love me?"

Matt is stops cold. His hands have moved to her shoulders, a weak attempt to stop her assault. Suddenly, her shoulders are impossibly stiff, her tone impossibly serious. The rapidness of the change alarms him, and he can't form the words to answer.

"I know you do," she continues, seemingly unbothered by his lack of response. "I love you too," her voice cracks and she has to look away. When she looks back, the tears are coming, obscuring her vision. "I love you. You have to know that."

Matt nods. He's not reading her heartbeat, he's beyond that now, but he knows she's not lying. He kisses her. It's slow and deliberate as he tries to take away whatever's happened, whatever's doing this to her.

Elektra pulls back fairly quickly. She can't handle tenderness for very long. She hugs him hard, one hand slipping beneath his shirt, scraping her nails over his back. With the other, she unzips his pants. She kissed the side of his neck, up to his ear again, whispering when she got there. "I know you love me. And I need you to do this for me. Please."

She's pulled back again, though she's still cupping him in her hand. She's also crying more. "Oh God. Elektra-"

"I love you," she interrupts. The words are emphatic, desperate. "You're the only one I ever…you're the only one left. Please."

Matt gives in. He'll ask later, ask everything that needs to be asked. For now, he can't deal with anything besides giving Elektra what she needs. He nods, pulling her hand away, then he stands fast enough to topple the chair. Pulling her with him, he lifts until she's wrapped around his waist. Glass cracks under his shoes as they move to the bedroom.

Clothes are gone in the space of blinks. Before Matt knows what's happening, Elektra is hovering over him on the bed, grinding against him. Switching positions isn't an option. She's in control, and he understands that she needs to be. Except that she needs to stop. They're not together yet, not really. She's just rocking against him and she needs to stop, because otherwise this will end too quickly.

Matt tells her this and he hears the bones in her face move to form a smile. Raising her hips, Elektra guides him in and they both groan, and then any thoughts Matt has of control are out the proverbial window.

* * *

><p>Matt wakes up alone. Luckily, there's no true moment of panic. It takes him a microsecond to realize she hasn't left, even though she's not in bed. He gets up and pulls on sweats and a t-shirt, then he goes to the kitchen. She's standing behind the counter, eating two-day-old pizza. He doesn't speak, just pushes the plate aside and plunders her mouth, running his hands over her body. She gasps and he notes it, notes also that she's naked save for one of his shirts.<p>

"You didn't leave," he says huskily, after oxygen has become a concern.

"I didn't plan to," she replies," matching his tone.

Matt frowns. He doesn't let go of her, but he does stiffen up. "You didn't plan on coming here either."

She flinches and backs away. Going to the fridge, she removes the magnet telling someone named Fatty to keep out and go away. She puts it in Matt's hand. "What's this?"

He rolls his eyes and throws it carelessly onto the counter. "My friend's ex gave it to him as a gag gift, he gave it to me."

She looks at the magnet again, chuckles. "He the coffee shop guy?"

Matt blinks. It takes him a minute to remember that she's seen Foggy before. "Yeah," he says with a nod. "He's the coffee shop guy."

"He seems nice."

Matt says nothing. Her laughs are warm and genuine. She's acting like this is normal, like he's woken up next to her every day for the last two years. He shakes his head and stares in her direction, waiting.

Her smile fades when she realizes he's not playing along anymore. She puts her back to him because it makes her feel better, folds her arms together. "I guess I owe you an apology."

Elektra stiffens when he goes to her. She doesn't want his arms around her, but she allows it. He's holding her from behind and he nuzzles her cheek, speaking quietly. "Not an apology," he argues. "An explanation."

She turns her head, finding his lips and meeting them. The softness of the kiss is belied by the way she's pushing back, rubbing against him. "An apology too," she insists, after they break apart.

"What for?" He's brushing kisses along her neck. She shifts restlessly, and he tightens his hold just a fraction.

"For being here," she replies, gasping a little when his palm skims across her breast. "For not being the person you knew."

This last she says softly. She's not even talking to him exactly. She shifts again and Matt stills his hands. She'd barely let him touch her last night, at least not how he wanted to. She was in control of everything. Their one other night together had been slow and careful and almost reverent, as if they'd both understood that this would be the only time, the one that would have to carry them such a long time. Last night was hard and fast and relentless. Elektra wouldn't allow tenderness, and Matt hadn't argued last night. But now it's today and she still won't let him touch her, and she's still trying to act like this is normal.

He's on the verge of pleading again, begging to know what's happening here, when his phone rings. "You should get that," she tells him.

"No." He's not letting her have the excuse. Elektra frowns. He's never refused her anything before, not last night, not two years ago when she told him to stay with her.

Matt senses the change, the surprise turning to anger. She's so unpredictable now, even more than she was two years ago. Her moods change faster than he can cope with, and he knows that bad things will happen if he's not careful.

"Answer it," she urges, a slight edge to her voice.

"No." He steps back from her, crossing his arms. He's not being confrontational, he's just telling her that she can't be in control of everything.

This panics her. She's been tense in different ways ever since she got here, and that tension is skyrocketing now. "The people you work with-"

Matt releases a bark of laughter. "You think I'm worried about _work_? You actually think I'm going to leave you here?"

"You think you need to watch me? You don't trust me to stay?"

He doesn't, but that's not really the issue. He touches her cheek and she shivers. "I don't want you alone. I don't think you want that either, otherwise why are you here?"

His voice is low and loving and she can't take it. She kisses his palm before moving it away. She tries answering somehow, and her breath catches. Matt's about to pull her into a hug when the machine finally kicks in.

It's Karen, and her voice freezes him. If she'd been pissed off like he'd expected, he could've ignored her without a thought. In reality, she's worried, genuinely concerned, and he can't brush that off nearly as easily.

Elektra smiles, squeezing his hand and kissing his cheek. "Told you to answer," she chides, almost teasingly. Then she's walking out of the kitchen, bare feet moving softly over tile. It occurs to Matt for the first time that she must've cleaned up the glass before he woke up.

There's a phone on the living room table and she tosses it to him on her way out. Karen's still talking to his machine. Matt catches the phone automatically, the same way he goes after Elektra. He catches her arm and turns her around and half-expects her to retaliate like she did on that playground. Instead, she turns halfway around, gives him a quick peck on the lips. "I need a shower," she says softly. "I'm not leaving."

"That's not what I'm worried about." It's a half-truth. He _is _worried about that, just not at this very minute.

She considers his response, and then she kisses him again. It's last night type of kiss, hard and demanding. "I'll be okay," she promises, gently freeing herself from his grasp. "I _am _okay."

She's not lying, or she doesn't think she is, and she's already slipping into his bathroom. And Karen still hasn't hung up. Matt curses to himself and answers the phone.

* * *

><p>He makes a terrible excuse about having the flu, or a bad cough, or something. It might've contradicted the excuse he gave last night. Karen must be at the office, because Foggy gets on the line. He's irate, because Matt had seemed perfectly fine yesterday, and he sure doesn't seem to be coughing all that much. Matt tries to explain, to lie properly, but he's too busy listening to Elektra down the hall. He basically hangs up on Foggy, leaving him totally in the lurch for today, and hopefully the next few days too. He should feel guilty about this, but he can't right now. Just like he can't feel guilty for cheating on Karen. They never actually claimed to be exclusive, but he wasn't seeing anyone else before last night, and he knows she wasn't either.<p>

The bathroom's a wall of steam. The phone thing took longer than he wanted it to, and Elektra's been in the shower for awhile. The water's too hot, she's almost scalding herself. Matt knows this long before he slides open the shower door. and confirms it as soon as some of the droplets land on him.

Grimacing, Matt reaches for a towel, holding it out for her. "God. Come out of there."

Her voice is again that weird mixture of playful and dangerous and sad and ten million other things. "I don't want to. Why don't you come in here?"

He shakes his head helplessly. "Elektra…"

She turns away from him, as much as she can in the shower. "Fine," she says lightly. "Shut the door though, you're getting water everywhere. She reaches to do this herself, but he stops her. Slipping his clothes off, he winces when he steps into the torrent of hot water. He doesn't attempt to change the temperature.

Elektra smiles and kisses him. This one is almost tender, almost sweet, almost the kisses he remembers. Then she's touching him again, in his most sensitive places, and she's doing it just a little too hard. He knows that she's aware of this, can tell that she enjoys the control over him. He starts massaging her breasts, kissing the valley between them. She tries pumping him harder, but he stills her hand.

"What?" she asks.

Matt shakes his head and smiles sadly and rests his forehead against hers. "This isn't what you need.

She shakes her head defiantly, trying to get closer, trying to move against him. "You don't get to tell me what I need."

She's angry again but he doesn't care. She's so tense. He massages her shoulder blades and places soft, undemanding kisses wherever he can. "This isn't what you _want_."

That proclamation seems to anger her even more. She runs her hands up and down his chest, purposely raking long nails over his skin. "You don't know that."

He could tell her that he does, that he knows everything her body's doing right now. It's too hard to explain that though, because she's still gripping him with one hand, the other buried in his hair. She pulls him down for another rough kiss, and he uses her distraction to make his point. Slipping a hand between her legs, Matt strokes her for a moment, then pulls the hand back. She's wet, but only because of the water. "That's how I know."

She starts protesting and her breath catches again. Matt reaches up, turns the showerhead away from them. Her skin's way too hot, and he knows that both of them must be beet-red. He reaches for Elektra next, pulling her against him. He tries not to react to the contact, but it's hard. _He's _hard, despite his efforts to keep from getting that way. She fights him at first, fights to leave the embrace, but he won't let her.

"Tell me, Elektra." More kisses, soft and quick, too quick for her to gain control or pull away. "Tell me what happened."

She's on the verge of sobbing, trying to control it. But she's given up on fighting him, sagging forward into his strong body. "No," she whispers.

"Why?" he asks, rubbing her back and stroking her hair and kissing her.

"Can't."

"Why?" She's breathing hard, but she's not crying. She's not crying, and she needs to so badly. "Let me help. It's okay, Elektra, just let me help."

She pulls at his arm, bringing it down between them She takes his wrist, pushing it to where it was before. "Please."

Matt shakes his head again while his heart breaks for her. "Elektra…" He's a lawyer, he talks for a living. But he can't talk with her. She won't let him, and he wouldn't know what to say if she did.

"Do you love me?"

He pauses. Not because he's thinking, but because the desperation mixed with anger mixed with love that he keeps hearing, it scares the hell out of him. "I love you. I never stopped."

She's pressed his hand against her, and Matt's begun to stroke her there, almost without realizing it. It's a soft, slow rhythm, but she's still pushing against him, gasping. She squeezes his hand and holds him tightly, free arm wrapped around his neck. She buries her head there, knowing he'll hear her either way. "Then help me. I promise I'll tell you soon."

She's not lying, at least not right now. As per usual, Matt's helpless to do anything other than what she wants, what she needs. He strokes her a little faster, moving so that she's pressed up against the shower wall.

* * *

><p>The water was icy cold by the time they left the shower. They're in the kitchen now, it's ten in the morning, and she's drinking. Not enough to get drunk, she's been nursing the same beer for an hour. It's like she's trying to get drunk, but can't. Her self-control won't allow that.<p>

He sits across from her again, lets the silence stretch. He's waiting for her to make good on her promise. Realizing that she needs a push, he asks, "You can't have children?"

She's surprised at the question, surprised that that's the one he's chosen to lead with. Shrugging, Elektra sips from her beer. "Bullseye, the stabbing, things got damaged."

She says this like it's obvious, like Matt is supposed to know. "I'm sorry."

"I'm not. Kids shouldn't…they shouldn't be raised in a world like this."

He's disturbed by how far she's fallen, how little she thinks of the world. "It's not all bad."

Elektra smiles, touching his hand. "No, no it's not."

There's a pause in conversation. Matt strokes his thumb over her fingers. "If I ask how it is that you're here, will you tell me?"

Silence.

"If I ask _why _you're here?"

"I told you-"

"No," he argues, some of the frustration bleeding through. "You haven't told me anything."

Another pause while Elektra measures her words. "Because I'm selfish. Because you're one of those few things that aren't bad, and I needed…"

She trails off and Matt doesn't push. He prods gently, carefully. Eventually, she tells a story about resurrection and ancient samurai orders, and other crazy things that have to be true, because she's sitting here in front of him and she's not lying.

"I know it sounds insane. It _is _insane."

Mat gets up from the table, feels her eyes tracking him as he moves. Opening the fridge, he takes out a beer of his own. He kisses her on the way there, then he sits down and pops the cap and takes an uncharacteristically long drag. Afterward, he smiles a little and waves his hand in her direction. "So ninjas. What else?"

Except Elektra won't tell him. There's a gap between leaving the ninja academy and coming here, and she won't tell him about it. She's vague at first, then when he pushes a little more, she gets edgy. She's tense again. She's always tense, except during a brief window of time after sex, after she's finished using him to avoid whatever it is she can't talk about.

She leaves the table, walking slowly through the apartment, examining things. Matt thinks that she must've done this earlier, while clearing up the glass, but he doesn't call her on it. There are hooks on the far wall. One of them holds a set of Jack Murdock's old boxing gloves. The other one holds a necklace. The necklace Elektra left him two years ago.

She touches it, running her fingers over the dotted letters. Matt can tell that she _did _notice it this morning, but she still sounds surprised. "You kept this," she says quietly, wonderingly.

"Of course I kept it." He wants to get up, go to her, hold her until she trusts him enough to let go, but she doesn't want that, he can tell.

"You don't wear it."

She's not hurt or angry, but Matt still flinches. "I used to. Every day, never took it off, and then…"

"Karen?"

He wants to snap. She keeps bringing up Karen, but she doesn't seem angry about that either. If anything she seems pleased for him, maybe a little amused. Matt doesn't understand and he's about ready to stop trying. "No. It wasn't her." Karen never asked him to stop wearing it, Matt had done that for himself. He won't tell Elektra that. Won't tell her that her gift had been dragging him down, making the pain of her absence that much heavier.

"I'm glad you don't wear it."

"What?"

"It doesn't work. I wore mine for years, never got much luck out of it. You should throw yours out."

Matt balks at the idea, even though the charm has caused him a lot of pain, particularly after he accepted that Elektra wasn't coming back. "You're alive, after you were dead. I'd say that's pretty lucky."

"I guess it depends on your perspective."

* * *

><p>Karen calls again several hours later, after Foggy calls to chew him out for being a lousy partner and a lousier friend. Foggy had to present a case himself today, and he doesn't think it went well. Matt snaps at him, says something insulting that borders on cruel. He feels bad as soon as he hangs up, promises to apologize later. Then Karen calls again.<p>

"No, no I'm fine. I'm sorry, I'm just...no. No really. I'm under the weather, that's all. No, honey. I appreciate that, but you don't need to come over."

Eventually he's able to hang up with her. He walks back to the bedroom, to the bed where Elektra's laying. He climbs in next to her, turning until they're face-to-face. The sheets are in total disarray. It smells like sweat and sex in here, and Matt wonders how strong that scent is for her.

"I'm sorry," Elektra murmurs, absently stroking his cheek.

"You mentioned that."

"I didn't mean to do this, make things complicated for you."

Brushing his lips to hers, Matt strokes up and down her torso, amazed again by how thin she is. It's getting late, and all he's seen her eat is half a slice of cold pizza. "Things have always been complicated for me." He kisses her again, nuzzles her cheek. "You said that Abby was yours. And then you said that she wasn't."

Elektra closes her eyes, begins to stiffen up. "I say a lot of things. I lie. I'm not a good person."

"That's not true."

"You don't know, you have no idea, You don't understand."

"So help me fix that."

"I can't."

"You keep saying that, and it's not true."

Sighing, Elektra turns in his arms spooning against him. "You love me right now. I'd like to keep it that way."

"Elektra-"

"Please don't."

Matt sighs too, though his is out of frustration rather than sadness. "Tell me about Abby."

She stiffens further, tries to pull away, but he won't let her. She settles for twisting in his arms again, putting her face near his collarbone. "Please don't," she repeats.

Matt suddenly understands that she'll never tell him. She keeps saying she will, keeps believing she will, but it won't happen. She's too scared, scared to break in front of him, scared to feel whatever pain this kid's loss has brought her. Matt comes to a decision.

He sits up, kisses her lips. Then he moves until he's on top of her, making sure to take his own weight. She's wearing his shirt again, the borrowed one from this morning. Matt touches her breasts through the material, gently massaging her nipples.

She gasps in surprise and pleasure and something else. "Matt…"

He knows what's wrong, he understood that this would happen. She didn't initiate this, she's not in control, and it scares her. "Trust me."

"Matt-"

"Trust. Me," he repeats, gentle but firm, the same was he's touching her now. He slides her shirt off, noting how she doesn't really help him.. "You wanted to forget, so let me help you, let me do this." Without waiting for an answer, he bows his head and brings his mouth to her chest.

He works slowly, knowing that it's making her insane. When Elektra had control, it was all about a hard, fast trip to oblivion. That's not what Matt wants. She keeps telling him where to touch, what she needs, but he ignores her. A couple times, she tries removing the sweats and t-shirt he's changed into, tries reaching below his waistband again. He stops her.

Elektra tries to make light of it. "Not fair if one of us is fully dressed."

He smiles against her neck, nipping softly at the skin there. "Are you self-conscious?" She doesn't answer. "Don't be. You're amazing."

"I'm not," she says and he knows that she's not just talking about her body.

"You are," he argues. "And if not, how will I know?"

Matt continues, feeling her twitch and gasp under him. She's not used to being passive, not used to having him ignore her wants. She's breathing hard by the time he does what she's ordered him to do for the last fifteen minutes.

"Oh God!" she cries, jerking into his hand. She tries going for his wrist, making him pick up the pace.

"Relax," Matt tells her, knowing that she can't. He knows everything about her body, and he's taken advantage of that knowledge. She's almost over-stimulated, and he's barely touched her yet.

He continues to go slow, feeling wetness build between his fingers. Elektra murmurs under her breath, words Matt can't imagine her using outside of this room, except in extreme situations. She calls him a sonuvabitch, curses until she's used all the terms several times. When she switches to Greek, Matt can't stop from chuckling. When he stops touching her, stilling his fingers, she curses louder than usual.

"Goddammit Matt…"

She sounds ready to kill him. Matt moves quickly, replacing his fingers with his mouth. He caresses her with his tongue and she whimpers. It's less about what his lips are doing and more about the fact that he's using one hand to caress the scar on her stomach. When he abandons her most obvious need and kisses the scar instead, a single tear rolls down Elektra's cheek.

She's on the verge of full-on crying by the time he pushes her over the edge, mouth still pressed against her. She spasms hard, trembling all over. Her eyes are closed tight, and she doesn't notice where his hand is going.

Elektra almost screams when Matt pushes into her. It's too much, she's on fire already, and she begs him to stop. He leans up and kisses her forehead, speaking quietly. "Trust me. Just let it go."

It terrifies her, how well he knows her body, how easily he's pushed her to this place she's never been before. She holds on to him, terrified of what will happen if he doesn't stop, if he keeps pushing her past the point of any and all control.

'You're okay," he tells her. "Just let it happen. Stop fighting and let it happen."

She can't. She tries telling him this, but she's way beyond the point of words.

He speaks in her ear, increasing the speed and pressure of his fingers. "You're always holding back. Don't. Let it go."

It's a kind of echo, from when they first met. The sparring match, the playground, he'd told her not to hold back then, either. It's the final straw, the instrument of her undoing. And even tough Elektra wants to keep from shattering in front of him, there's nothing she can do.

* * *

><p>Afterward, they lie together amidst tangled sheets. It's getting late now, the sun will be gone soon. Elektra has her head on Matt's chest, eyes closed. "I don't usually react that way."<p>

Matt fans his hand through her hair and says nothing. She's ashamed of the emotional crash that followed the orgasm, ashamed of the tears she couldn't stop. If she realizes that he meant for it to happen, she doesn't say so.

"Sorry," she says, kissing a red mark near his shoulder.

"Stop apologizing," he orders, kissing her temple. There are scratches and bruises all over his upper body, traces of blood on the blankets. Elektra had taken his advice to heart. She hadn't held back, she hadn't been capable of it. She'd cried and screamed and punched and scratched. One minute, she was begging Matt not to leave, not to leave like everyone else, the next she was yelling for him to let her go. He hadn't done that. He'd gone through the storm with her, let her pour out the grief, even though he didn't know who she was grieving for, even though he would be sore as hell tomorrow.

She's relaxed now, but it won't last and they both know it. Still, some of the pain has finally been released, and that was what Matt had hoped for. _Most _of what he'd hoped for anyway.

Elektra looks up at him, considers. Then, "She wasn't mine. Abby. I wasn't thinking last night. I haven't been thinking in…in two years."

Matt holds her a little tighter, encouraging her to continue.

"She was just a kid, kid in trouble, I tried to help, I couldn't."

The agony in that statement makes Matt want to throw up. "What kind of trouble, how did you know her?"

Elektra doesn't answer. Her heart skips a beat and Matt knows that even now, like this, she won't tell him everything. Finally, she says, "It doesn't matter. She was my responsibility, and I failed her."

Responsibility, that's what Elektra meant about the girl being hers. "How was she your responsibility, who was she to you?"

Elektra gives another of those bitter, humorless chuckles. "I'd rather you keep the image of the person you think I am. You can't…I don't want you seeing what's really there. Abby died, I tried to save her, I couldn't. End of story."

Matt disagrees, but doesn't tell her so. She's opening up, if only a little, and he won't jeopardize it by talking too much, giving her an excuse to stop.

"I think," Elektra begins quietly. "I think Abby was going to be my excuse."

She doesn't elaborate, so Matt's forced to speak up. "Excuse for what?"

"For coming back. I was going to save her and it would be part of making up for…for certain things."

"The things that you don't think I can hear?"

"You _can't_ hear them, not if I want you to see me the same way as before. Anyway, I think Abby would've been enough to justify coming back."

"You _are _back," he points out softly.

Elektra shakes her head, stroking the beginnings of stubble on his chin. He'd shaved before the date with Karen, but not today. "I shouldn't be here. I _can't_ be here."

Matt's stomach drops. He's been fearing this all along, but that hasn't prepared him for it. He holds her tighter, has to restrain himself so he won't bruise her the way she did him. "You're not leaving me again. Not again."

"I didn't mean to do it the first time."

"You stayed away. You meant to do that."

She moves her hand back to his chest, feeling the heartbeat there. It's faster than normal, because he's scared or angry or both. "I needed time."

"And I needed _you_," he states, definitely angry. "I _still _need you."

"The person you need died two years ago. The person I am now, you need to stay away from her."

"You're lying."

"What?"

"You're lying."

"You don't-"

"Yeah, I can know that. I do know that. I know you want to be here, I know you're making excuses. Can you cut the dark and mysterious thing for one minute and just be honest with me? How hard would that be?"

"Harder than you'd imagine," she murmurs. She hasn't been honest with anyone in so long that she's forgotten how to do it. "I'm going to leave, Matt."

"No. You aren't."

Elektra raises an eyebrow. "You going to lock me in this bedroom?"

"If I have to."

"Isn't that illegal, counselor?"

"I don't care." He's not joking. Since she arrived, he hasn't cared about Karen or Foggy or Daredevil or anything else. That should scare him, and it does a little, but not as much as Elektra leaving. "Let me help you."

"You have."

"Oh, so now that I have, you get to walk away again. Is that how it works?"

"Matt…"

"When were you planning on going?"

She pauses, not wanting to tell him. "There's a flight late tonight."

"Don't take it. Two years, I think you owe me the chance to convince you."

"Convince me of what?"

"You know what."

"It won't work."

"You don't know that. Regardless, I think you owe me one more night."

She smiles a little. "Earlier, all I owed you was an explanation."

"And you haven't given me half of one. I'll trade that for the extra night."

"Matt, I can't-"

"Stop saying that. Tell me that you want to be alone tonight and I'll let you."

She doesn't answer.

"Elektra."

Her shoulders shake as she chokes on a sob. "I can't…I failed, Matt. I lost her and I failed and I need to figure things out."

"Figure them out here. Let me help you."

"You keep saying that-"

"-but I don't understand, yeah. But I do understand some things, I understand enough. You assume that you're the only one who gets pain, but you aren't."

Elektra says nothing.

"Tell me you want to be alone tonight."

Again nothing.

"Then don't be," he says quietly, turning her face so he can kiss her lips. Twin tears roll down her cheeks, and he uses his thumbs to take them away.

They're silent for a long time. The tension Elektra's carried from the beginning is building again. Soon. The grief will come again, sweep her away to a place where she's almost beyond reach. "I won't take the flight. I can't give you anything more than that."

Matt nods. He didn't expect anything else. He doesn't even expect her to keep her word. She'd meant it all those times when she promised him the truth, and then she'd gotten scared. She might get scared tonight, and then he'll wake up alone in the morning. Even if that's not the case, she's still grieving, and she's still hiding things, and she's still a mess. So is he, he's always been a mess. And there are other things to consider. Karen, Daredevil…

Matt cuts himself off. He can't think about those things right now, can't afford to. All he can do is hold Elektra and wait for the grief to hit again, and hope that she's here when he wakes up tomorrow.


End file.
